This year, we're taking a longer term view of support for efforts to end
the frailty and disease caused by aging.

Sign up to make monthly donations to the SENS Research Foundation in
support of rejuvenation research programs, and we will match
the next year of your gifts.
Learn more »

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such
as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine:
building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these
treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

Creation of Functional Tissue Engineered Vaginas

In terms of complexity, this seems on a par with generating a new trachea or esophagus, both goals that were achieved in recent years:

Four young women born with abnormal or missing vaginas were implanted with lab-grown versions made from their own cells, the latest success in creating replacement organs that have so far included tracheas, bladders and urethras. Follow-up tests show the new vaginas are indistinguishable from the women's own tissue and have grown in size as the young women, who got the implants as teens, matured. All four of the women are now sexually active and report normal vaginal function. Two of the four, who were born with a working uterus but no vagina, now menstruate normally.

The pilot study is the first to show that vaginal organs custom-built in the lab using patients' own cells can be successfully used in humans, offering a new option for women who need reconstructive surgeries. All four of the women in the study were born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which the vagina and uterus are underdeveloped or absent. Conventional treatment generally involves the use of grafts made from intestinal tissue or from skin, but both tissues have drawbacks.

The researchers started off by collecting a small amount of cells from genital tissue and grew two types of cells in the lab: muscle cells and epithelial cells, a type of cell that lines body cavities. About four weeks later, the team started applying layers of the cells onto a scaffold made of collagen, a material that can be absorbed by the body. They then shaped the organ to fit each patient's anatomy, and placed it in an incubator. A week later, the team created a cavity in the body and surgically attached the vaginal implants to existing reproductive organs. Once implanted, nerves and blood vessels formed to feed the new organ, and new cells eventually replaced the scaffolding as it was absorbed by the body.

All of Fight Aging!, with the exception of the
introductory articles, is published under the
Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 license. In short, this means that you are encouraged to
republish and rewrite Creative Commons licensed Fight Aging! content in any
way you see fit. We only ask that that you are polite and (a) link to the
original, (b) attribute the author, and (c) attribute Fight Aging!.